Today’s interviewee is Northeast coach Jeremy Wiggins, whose team defeated No. 1 seed Fannin County 48-39 in the Class A Division I quarterfinals last week and will play Fitzgerald in the semifinals Friday. Northeast is the first Macon public school to reach a semifinal since Westside in 2003 and first to host a semifinal since Westside in 2000. Wiggins is a Northeast alumnus who became head coach in 2018.
1. What do you make of the accomplishment of reaching the semifinals? “There’s a lot of excitement. It’s big for the community and city to have a chance to host at home. We had a chance three years ago [to make the semifinals] and lost to Swainsboro in double overtime. That gave us an idea of what we needed to do to get over the hump if we ever got back in this spot. I always use my college playing days as examples, going back to App State. For this to happen, it takes hard work and discipline and focus, and you’ve also got to have some luck when you’re trying to make these playoff runs. You’ve got to have good players. It’s a little bit of everything.” [Wiggins was an All-America defensive back on Appalachian State’s 2005 and 2006 FCS national championship teams that won four playoff rounds each year.]
2. Your best-known players are quarterback Reginald Glover and running back Nick Woodford. What sets them apart? “Both of them put pressure on the defense. Bam [Glover] has speed and quickness. He’ll use his athletic ability and his arm to make plays. Nick, everybody knows he’s a power runner, but he has speed and everything you can have in a running back. It starts up front with the offensive line. That’s for any team. You can’t do anything if you don’t have an o-line. We’re blessed to have a good group up front, and they should get more credit. The skill players also make plays and make [Glover and Woodford] look good too.”
3. What did you and your staff do that helped most in making Northeast a consistent winner? “The year before I got the job, I spent a year at Warner Robins [the 2017 Class 5A runner-up coached by Mike Chastain], and that gave me an idea how I needed to run my program. I learned about what to focus on, going to coaches clinics, building relationships with college coaches, getting out in the community, asking for what you need resource-wise, getting good coaches around you, keeping weightlifting data, and how to break down film. I crash-coursed myself in one year and mixed it with what I wanted to do. It started in middle school, making sure everybody is on the same page. They [middle school players] all came in the summertime and lifted and ran with us. We nurture them and bring them along during the summer and they lift weights all the way up through high school. When they get here, it’s nothing new. They know the offense, the defense, the coaches. We have good relationships with all of them. For the last six or seven years, our middle school has won the [Bibb County] championship. If someone asks me how to build a program, I say everything starts with middle school.”
4. What challenge does Fitzgerald pose? “On offense, the use various formations. They’ll use a wing-T one set, then come out in the spread. It makes you prepare for a whole lot of sets. On defense, they just do what they do. They’re well-coached, and they’re where they’re supposed to be. They’re disciplined. We’ve played Fitzgerald the past four years some kind of way, so we’re familiar with each other. There’s no secrets. We were joking [Wiggins and Fitzgerald coach Tucker Pruitt] that we can’t get away from each other. It’s good competition.” [This will be the fourth meeting in five seasons between the teams. Fitzgerald won two of the previous three games, but Northeast won 27-20 in a 2023 regular-season game.]
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